Left Behind
by imnotacommittee
Summary: Post BDM the crew must pick up the pieces


**Disclaimer**: the characters of _Firefly_ / _Serenity_ belong to Joss Whedon, Fox, and Universal. No infringement is intended

**Thanks**: to Ilandra, as always. New waters, but just as much fun. Is it just me, or are all captains hot? Thank you for once again adding your insightful and valuable comments to make this story what it is.

**Setting**: after Serenity, the movie, so spoilers are discussed

**Left Behind**

Barrels, empty and full, catapulted upwards as the mule crashed through them. Mal gritted his teeth and braced for impact. Behind him, Jayne shouted an obscenity as various crates were knocked out of their way. Mal cast a fleeting look behind him, assuring all were still aboard. The heavy fear that had gripped him back at the meeting place threatened to knock him harder than River's driving.

River released an involuntary shriek, and Mal turned as the mule smashed into _Serenity's_ cargo bay wall. He slammed against his seat constraints, a sharp pain shooting through his shoulders and down his back. Ignoring it, he freed himself and looked upward.

"Doc!" he yelled, the raw emotion in his voice startling him. He looked down at Jayne, whose face was urgent. "Doc!"

Jayne leapt off the mule, cocking his beloved Vera, and ran towards the opening of the cargo bay door. "Kaylee, shut the door!" he shouted.

The mechanic, confused but experienced enough to know how to respond, slammed the control buttons without acknowledging whether or not the correct ones were depressed. Jayne stopped at the back entrance, scanning the vast openness of desert surrounding _Serenity_ as the doors shut.

"River, get us out of here!" Mal shouted, running around to the mule's back seats. He looked up at the catwalk. "Where the hell is that doctor?"

Jayne ran back to the Captain and met his gaze. A curt shake of his head somewhat settled Mal's nerves as he removed the seat constraints from the mule's final passenger. He tried to keep his hands steady, tried to keep them from slipping on all the still-warm blood that seemed to be everywhere. Somewhere in the distance, the constant drumming of his pounding heart echoed in his ears.

_This isn't happeni_ng, he thought. Footsteps could be heard above him. Jayne looked up and cursed.

Mal followed his gaze and his blood ran cold. "Get him out of here!" he yelled.

Inara stood atop the stairwell, outside her shuttle. Her mouth dropped, and her face paled.

"Get him _out_ of here!" Mal shouted again, his voice breaking. It hadn't done that in years.

Inara blinked herself back to the moment and hurried away.

Kaylee had rushed to the group. Her eyes widened for a moment before filling with tears. "What happened?" she gasped.

"Where is that ruttin' doctor?" Mal seethed, staring down at his first mate. Zoe stared blindly up at him, coughing. Mal's panic was gone, replaced by the cold dread of inevitability, which he tried to shove down. Simon would be able to fix her. The doctor could save anyone who could be.

A gentle pressure fell upon his shoulder. "I'm here." The Captain whirled around to see Simon, whose shock was fading behind the calm physician's mask. "Take her out and lay her on the ground. We won't have time to bring her to the infirmary just yet."

Mal nodded and backed up to get better positioned. River collided with him. He blinked in surprise. "River, I told you to get us out of here."

The girl remained rooted. "We're safe," she said. "I can help Simon."

Deciding to reprimand her about insubordination later, Mal looked at Kaylee. "Go to Inara," he said, the softness he reserved for her alone returning to his voice.

Kaylee was frozen. "Go now, Kaylee," Mal said. "The doctor is here."

The mechanic looked down at Simon, who paused and held her gaze for a moment. His meek smile offered her some assurance, and she ran up the stairs.

"Gorramit, Mal!" Jayne spat. "Let's go!"

Mal turned to the mule and placed his hands under Zoe's shoulders. She barely moaned at the movement, her face only slightly contorting as Mal and Jayne hoisted her upwards. Mal tried not to see the sticky mass engulfing her. _She's been through worse_, he told himself. _And she always pulled through._ Zoe would be all right. She had to be.

"Place her here." The doctor indicated a spot of the floor where he had laid a dirty crate tarp.

Simon, with the strength he only displayed when in his medical element, ripped her bloodied shirt open. She coughed roughly, more blood spattering on Simon's face. He didn't seem to notice. River knelt beside her brother, instinctively knowing what he needed.

"Wasn't she wearing –"

"_Aiya huail, _it ripped right through it," Jayne said. "What the hell kind of bullet does that?"

"One we ought to start lookin' into," Mall replied absently. He coughed himself, desperate to loosen the constriction engulfing his chest.

"They came out of nowhere," Jayne continued. "Completely uncalled for. We was good on our end. We had the goods. When she's patched up, I'm gonna –"

Mal shot him a glare. "Not with those guns you ain't. It ain't worth it."

"My ass it ain't worth it!" Jayne exclaimed. "They don't go shootin' for no reason and expect to get away with it."

Mal ignored him. He knelt down besides his wounded first mate, not caring if he was in the way. The damn tightness was overcoming him as all the red flooded his vision. Too much. The reality he had been denying was quickly forcing its way into the front of his mind.

But Simon was there. He would patch her up and she'd be OK. Zoe was always there. She had survived the worst battles of the war. She was his strength, the calm voice of reason he so desperately needed. She was the strongest person he knew. Surviving the deaths of so many, the death of the one who had mattered most to her until…

"Doctor –"

"It just missed her heart…" Simon trailed, the frantic urgency breaking through the calm medical rhetoric. He took her face in his hands. "Zoe, Zoe, c'mon, you can do this..."

She opened her eyes at the sound of her name, but Mal could tell she couldn't see anything. She coughed again, and Mal felt as if he was going to retch. Not Zoe. Not Zoe…

"He's here," River said softly, and Mal snapped his head up, fearing Inara had returned. But the companion had obeyed and remained in her shuttle. Mal looked at River again. The girl was staring at the space on Zoe's other side, her face a mixture of peace and sadness. Jayne followed her gaze and took a step away, disturbed.

"Zoe, c'mon!" Simon cried, placing some sorts of medical equipment into Zoe's chest. It managed to pause the bleeding, and Mal exhaled, feeling some of the tightness lessen. The ship wouldn't survive without Zoe. She would fight to stay with them.

But when he looked to his first mate's face, his relief dissolved into finality. It was too late. It wasn't her lack of color that told him; after all the blood she had lost, she wouldn't have the proper tone for days. It was the expression on her face. The peace. The stillness that he had seen too many times before. There was even the smallest trace of a smile. Her eyes, finally focused, saw something no one else could see.

No one but River.

The Captain looked again to the space next to her and then back to River. Tears fell down her cheeks. And Mal knew.

"Zoe!" Simon was yelling. He grabbed her face in his hands. "Zoe, we can do this! I can fix you!"

Mal reached over and lifted the doctor's hands. Simon tried to break free, but Mal's grip was strong. The younger man looked horrified and affronted.

"I can save her, Mal," he insisted, angry. "Let me –"

Mal pushed him roughly back. Simon shot up, determination in his eyes as he held Mal's gaze.

"Dammit, Mal! What are you doin'?" Jayne shouted.

Simon lurched forward, his hands clumsy and slippery. He reached for Zoe's chest. Again, Mal interfered, grabbing his wrists. Simon seethed.

"Let me be the gorram doctor!"

Mal was calm. He looked up at River, who now reflected Zoe's faint smile, and then down to his fallen friend. The tranquility remained on her face. Simon exhaled loudly as Mal released his hands and reached down to close her eyes.

Mal sighed. "She's gone." His voice was hardly more than a whisper as he closed his own eyes. He had seen death too often to deny it. He was used to it.

But that didn't stop him from feeling emptier than he ever had before.

"_Tama de_," Jayne gasped.

Simon fell backwards to the floor, panting the adrenalin away. His hand covered his gaping mouth, failure replacing the anger.

River wiped her eyes and knelt next to her brother.

"It's all right, _ge ge_," she whispered, placing a hand on his shoulder. "She didn't want to leave him."

The doctor looked bleakly back at her. Jayne collapsed next to Zoe, stunned into silence.

"We're all that's left," River whispered.

Mal's eyes snapped open, horror filling him anew. Without a look to anyone, he shot upwards and ran up the stairs to the companion's shuttle. Driven by the same raw energy that had consumed him when he had seen Zoe crumple to the ground not an hour earlier, he blindly charged forward.

He swept into the shuttle, panic causing his breath to leave his lungs before he could replace it. He doubled over for a moment, the shuttle's incense making him dizzy. Squinting through the fuzzy disorientation, he saw Inara and Kaylee sitting on the bed, frozen by the yelling they had heard below. The look on Mal's face confirmed their fears.

Kaylee brought her hands to her mouth, tears spilling down her face. Inara's own cheeks glistened, and she closed her eyes, squeezing the suddenly very audible bundle she had been holding.

Mal rushed towards them, reaching for the baby in Inara's arms. The child instinctively stretched out for him, the only father figure he'd ever known. Once free of her burden, Inara wrapped her arms around Kaylee, turning to hide her face into the young girl's hair.

Mal didn't hear them. He clutched the child, Zoe's child, tightly, as if he needed to be assured of his existence. His mind whirled. Somewhere in the distance, he could hear the baby's cries.

Samuel wailed with an intuitive understanding of what had just happened. He squirmed in Mal's embrace, not trying to be free but eager to be held by another set of arms.

Mal shuddered as pressed his head against the baby's. Samuel had lost both of them: a father he had never known and now a mother who loved him more than life itself. Mal exhaled, Samuel's light curls sifting in the sudden breeze.

Samuel hardly ever cried. He was always a reasonably happy baby. The crew had always joked that he had his father's happy disposition. That had never failed to make Zoe smile. Since the moment she had learned Samuel was going to be, the melancholy had faded from her face. It would be forever present, but it had mixed with the deepest of bittersweet joys. Samuel was the blessing she could have never hoped for.

For all of them, too. They all had taken to Samuel. Even Jayne. Destined to be without his father, Samuel was never lacking for affection from his extended family, all of whom who adored him. Only with them for eighteen months, it felt as if he had always been there. Or better, as if Wash had never left. Not completely.

But it was all over. Samuel was alone now. Mal's breath left his body, and he collapsed onto the bed. Inara turned quickly and held the baby close to the Captain, her eyes brimming over as she held his gaze.

Mal stared at her, reality seeping into him as he felt Samuel fidget in his arms. It never occurred to him that he would be without Zoe. Even immediately after Wash had been killed and she had fallen into a shell of herself, he never thought she wouldn't be there at his side. They had lived through too much together, the worst anyone should have to. And they survived. To lose her like this, on a job on some God-forsaken moon seemed, so random, so pointless. How could he possibly continue without the source of quiet strength that was his first mate and best friend?

Inara's mouth twisted and she took Samuel from Mal's weakened grasp. He watched as she tried to sooth the baby, but to no avail. She looked up at him again.

"I can't believe…" she trailed.

Kaylee's sobs had subsided as she looked to her captain. "It don't make no sense," she whimpered.

"That it don't, Kaylee," Mal replied, staring at Samuel, whose cries had softened but remained. Only Zoe could truly calm her child.

Kaylee followed his gaze, her eyes spilling over anew. She reached to cup the baby's cheek. "Oh, Samuel," she sobbed.

"What are we gonna do now?"

They all started at Jayne's sudden question. He and Simon stood in the shuttle entrance way, both looking lost.

Mal stared blankly at him. The thought of _doing_ anything hadn't even entered his consciousness. That surprised him. He usually always kept his wits about him in a crisis. When _Serenity_ died in the middle of nowhere. When Wash was killed. But now he was at a loss. He was the captain, and he didn't have the faintest idea of what to do next.

Simon walked to Kaylee and put his arm around her. River slowly entered. Wordlessly, she walked to the bed and knelt in front of the baby, rubbing his back. Samuel's cries subdued, and he hiccupped in Inara's arms. The crew stared at one another, at Samuel, wondering what to say next.

"I, uh, cleaned her up as best I could," Simon offered quietly. His own shirt and hands remained stained. He looked at Mal. "You were right; there was nothing I could have done."

Mal nodded. "I knew you wouldn't give up, doc. It just wouldn't have mattered."

Simon sighed, the defeat not leaving his face.

"She wanted both," River said, still looking at Samuel, whose hiccups had grown further apart. "Now she can."

Mal looked beyond River, wondering when her words had started to make sense to him.

"It ain't right," Jayne said, his disgust evident. "We should back and finish 'em."

"I ain't buryin' any more of my crew," Mal snapped, gazing at River and Samuel. "I already lost me more than I can spare."

"It just ain't right," Jayne repeated. "Little man won't even know his ma now."

Kaylee sniffed back a sob. Simon squeezed her tighter. River reached up and placed Samuel in her lap. He looked up at her, making a questioning sound. Mal's heart tugged as the slow half-smile formed on the baby's face.

"So, what are we gonna do now?" Jayne asked again.

Mal stared at River playing with the baby, then to the crew watching over. Suddenly, he was very tired. But there was only one course he could think of taking. Samuel looked up at him. To his surprise, Mal felt one end of his mouth turn upwards as he gazed back, and he knew exactly what to do.

"We're gonna bring her to Haven," he answered.

Fin

_Aiya huaile – _shit on my head

_Ge ge_ – big brother

_Tama de – _fuck me blind

**Final A/N**: the screenplay to _Serenity_ just says that Wash is buried on a desert planet. I like to think it was on Haven.


End file.
